Renowned in the disciplines of political theory and philosophy, Hannah Arendt’s searing critiques of modernity continue to resonate in other fields of thought decades after she wrote them. In Communication Ethics in Dark Times: Hannah Arendt’s Rhetoric of Warning and Hope, author Ronald C. Arnett offers a groundbreaking examination of fifteen of Arendt’s major scholarly works, considering the German writer’s contributions to the areas of rhetoric and communication ethics for the first time.
Arnett focuses on Arendt’s use of the phrase “dark times” to describe the mistakes of modernity, defined by Arendt as the post-Enlightenment social conditions, discourses, and processes ruled by principles of efficiency, progress, and individual autonomy. These principles, Arendt argues, have led humanity down a path of folly, banality, and hubris. Throughout his interpretive evaluation, Arnett illuminates the implications of Arendt’s persistent metaphor of “dark times” and engages the question, How might communication ethics counter the tenets of dark times and their consequences? A compelling study of Hannah Arendt’s most noteworthy works and their connections to the fields of rhetoric and communication ethics, Communication Ethics in Dark Times provides an illuminating introduction for students and scholars of communication ethics and rhetoric, and a tool with which experts may discover new insights, connections, and applications to these fields.
Top Book Award for Philosophy of Communication Ethics by Communication Ethics Division of the National Communication Association, 2013
| Acknowledgments |
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vii | |
| Prologue: Modernity as Gollum---Arendt's Warning |
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1 | (5) |
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1 The Derivative Self and the Responsive Turn: Love and Saint Augustine |
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6 | (11) |
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2 The Desire to Belong: Rahel Varnhagen |
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17 | (12) |
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3 Totalization and Organized Loneliness: The Origins of Totalitarianism |
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29 | (18) |
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4 A Community of Memory at Risk: Between Past and Future |
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47 | (15) |
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5 Modernity's Amnesia, Forgotten Existential Demands: The Human Condition |
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62 | (15) |
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6 The Taken-for-Granted: On Revolution |
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77 | (13) |
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7 The Banality of Evil: Eichmann in Jerusalem |
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90 | (15) |
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8 The Temporality of Judgment: Lectures on Kant's Political Philosophy |
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105 | (12) |
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9 Lamp Holders and Holy Sparks: Men in Dark Times |
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117 | (15) |
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10 Forgotten Roots: Crises of the Republic |
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132 | (14) |
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11 Recovering Human Meaning, the Silent Side of Speech: Essays in Understanding |
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146 | (24) |
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12 Otherwise Than Convention: Responsibility and Judgment |
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170 | (13) |
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13 An Enlarged Mentality: The Promise of Politics |
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183 | (14) |
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14 Clarity of a Situated and Responsive Voice: The Jewish Writings |
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197 | (23) |
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15 Navigating Darkness: Responsibility and The Life of the Mind |
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220 | (22) |
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16 Countering the Magic of Modernity: Meeting Darkness and Rejecting Artificial Light |
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242 | (25) |
| Notes |
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267 | (16) |
| Bibliography |
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283 | (10) |
| Index |
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293 | |
Ronald C. Arnett is the chair of and a professor in the department of communication & rhetorical studies at Duquesne University. He is the author of nine books, including Communication Ethics Literacy: Dialogue and Difference (with Janie Harden Fritz and Leeanne M. Bell); Dialogic Confession: Bonhoeffer's Rhetoric of Responsibility, for which he received the 2006 Everett Lee Hunt Award for Outstanding Scholarship; and Communication and Community: Implications of Martin Buber's Dialogue, for which he won the 1988 Book of the Year Award from the Religious Speech Communication Association.
